KentNewsNet.com

The body remembers trauma. Reading this article, remembering, smelling the smells of smoke drifting from the burning ROTC Bld; hearing the sound of rowdiness and feeling the rising palpable tension; seeing the students respond to every near stimuli either laughing, cursing, drinking more than usual of the booze bought after driving back roads out of town toward Ravenna.
Sunday when I heard and saw tanks rolling in I left for home and safety. My father was a 23 year military man and I used to quip, "Yes, my father taught me that when the tanks roll in-you roll out."
For those of you who were not there, Michener's Kent State will give you a glimpse of the people and postures of those fateful days.

Melissa,

What a bizarre article you wrote!

I don't even know where to start with it. But here are a few points...

1. You never mentioned the word "war" or "Vietnam" or "Cambodia Bombing" appear nowhere in the article.

2. You never mentioned the words "anti-war demonstration" in the article.

3. Most absurdly you compare the Kent State violence against those expressing their dissent toward an unpopular and murderous war, by armed forces of the government, with Virginia Tech - the random action of a unhinged armed insane person.

4. You seem to be viewing the complete evacuation of the university as just a sort of overdone attempt to help the traumatized students. No mention of the obvious reason - that a lot of the students were't grieving - they were angry as hell - over the murder of their fallen comrades and the people Nixon was mordering in Cambodia and Vietnam. The authorities had a real fear of the event leading to an escalation of angry action on the campus, then across the US.

5. And as expected in this modern era of self-absorbed narcissism you make the whole tumultuous event just a personal issue to seek "healing" over. This is probably hard for you to understand, but things were different back then. in those days, people really did care about things beyond themselves - they cared that their government was murdering millions of people in a far off land.

Please give a listen to CSNY's "Four Dead in Ohio" and other popular music of that era that played from every radio, maybe it will help you understand what it was like.